Car Porn: Pontiac Firebird TransAm

News of Pontiac's impending demise - who would have thought? - makes me remember how much I once lusted after a Firebird TransAm, midnight blue with a gold bird on the hood very much like the ones in these photographs.

Way back when 30 still sounded old, and I had finally managed to struggle through college, graduate, and get my first real job, I needed a car to replace the old one that had finally died after hauling me to school and back for many years. And then miraculously, the TransAm of my dreams came along, for sale, at the right price.

I wish I could say I bought it. I wish I could tell you stories of driving to the beach in that T-top, tearing up the Interstates, outrunning the law, radio blaring, cruising down the coastal highway, cutting doughnuts, laying rubber, a throbbing engine that made heads turn when I pulled up, stories of warm days and hot nights, stories that would make you jealous of a carefree and very misspent youth.

But I can't. I bought a cheaper, and much more respectable Chevy sedan. As things turned out, a much more practical choice. A much more practical life. Being what I thought I was supposed to be.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't been so practical. Sometimes I wish I had better stories to tell.

If only we knew then what we know now.